‘Parallel Processes’: Observed in the Patient, Therapy and Organization

Abstract

In this theoretically informed clinical study the author introduces the term ‘parallel process’. Five parallel processes of ‘confusion’, ‘genital-centrality’, ‘binary rigidity’, ‘rejection’, and the ‘questioning of authenticity’ are observed in the analytic material presented by trans-gender patients in specialist small group psychotherapy, and observed similarly in the organizational context in which the group takes place. The author provides a theoretical explanation for the occurrence of such parallel processes. The author concludes that the term ‘parallel processes’ describes a phenomenon currently without definition in the existing group-analytic vocabulary and suggests it should be added as a group-analytic term to describe the processes that are clinically and theoretically detailed in this article.